Fact checking Marama Davidson's 'white cis men' claims (and follow-up statement)
Wednesday, 29 March 2023
This reporting is part of Stuff’s fact-checking project, The Whole Truth – Te Tikanga Katoa. You can read the rest of our fact-checks here.
Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.
What’s the issue
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson has made headlines for a comment she made at a rally at the weekend: “I am a violence prevention minister and I know who causes violence in the world, it is white, cis men.”
Davidson was among hundreds protesting British anti-transgender activist known as Posie Parker, who then cancelled planned events and left the country.
The Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence made the comments when questioned by the host of a far-right media outlet. Davidson was hit by a motorcycle at a pedestrian crossing. She said it was shortly beforehand.
She was “in shock” during the interaction, Davidson later said. She said she wasn’t as clear in her comments as she should have been.
(By the way: “Cis” is short for cisgender, referring to people who aren’t transgender.)
What we found
In a statement, Davidson later said: “Women are overwhelmingly more likely to be victims of family violence and sexual violence at the hands of men.
“I should have made clear in my comments that violence happens in every community. My intention was to affirm that trans people are deserving of support and to keep the focus on the fact that men are the main perpetrators of violence.”
So, what do we know about the links between gender, ethnicity and violence?
First, it’s important to note the statistics relating to family violence are woefully lacking, for many and complex reasons. National numbers also tend to be about victims, rather than offenders.
Stuff’s own Homicide Report, the first publicly searchable database of homicides in Aotearoa New Zealand, shows homicides are overwhelmingly committed by men, in particular young men, who account for the greatest proportion of fatal violent crime in the country. The vast majority of men who kill an intimate partner have at least one violence conviction, Stuff found.
Of all victims killed by a partner or ex-partner, Stuff’s 2019 analysis found 75% were female and 25% male. In cases where a man was killed by a woman, often the violence was in response to an initial attack by a man.
Māori are over-represented in the homicide statistics: 2020 analysis found nearly half the intimate partner perpetrators identified as European and a quarter were Māori.
While New Zealand’s homicide rate is below the OECD average the country outranks other comparable ones when it comes to rates of family violence, particularly intimate partner violence and child abuse.
Auckland University associate professor of sociology Vivienne Elizabeth has previously told Stuff while abuse is usually measured in terms of physical assault the defining feature of many oppressive relationships is actually coercive control – a pattern of behaviour used to isolate, scare and entrap.
The 2022 New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey showed “females were almost four times as likely as males to have experienced offending by an intimate partner and nearly twice as likely to have experienced offending by another family member”. About 35% of females and 12% of males had experienced sexual assault in their lifetime.
In 2020, 84% of applicants for protection orders were women and 86% of respondents were men.
Again, statistics show Māori women report higher rates of physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence than European, Pacific and Asian women. Overall, it’s known those from lower socio-economic status groups are at increased risk of violence.
It’s important to note there is a complex intersection of historical and contemporary factors at play here, including the ongoing impact of colonisation. As a recent Cabinet paper points out: Western approaches to responding to violence have not been effective for Māori.
People with diverse sexualities were nearly three times as likely as heterosexual people to experience offences by family members and more than six times as likely to have been a victim of sexual assault in the previous 12 months, according to the 2022 survey.
The New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse makes the point a gendered analysis of intimate partner and sexual violence means understanding differences in the context, dynamics, meaning and consequences of violence. It highlights “other structural factors including colonisation, racism, socio-economic status, ableism and homo/bi/transphobia need to be considered together with gender”.
In summary
Family violence in particular is difficult to quantify because it takes many forms and is under-reported. But we know it’s the largest driver of violent crime in Aotearoa New Zealand. And it’s predominantly perpetrated by men, against women and children.
If you interpret Davidson’s comment as if it’s only white cisgender men who commit violence – which Prime Minister Chris Hipkins appears to have – it’s evidently not true.
“New Zealand European” men make up the majority of the male population and are responsible for the majority of reported family violence offences.
More Māori than New Zealand European people were convicted of family violence offences in 2022. (But keep in mind only a fraction of reported offences end in a conviction.)
According to Police demographic data on sexual assault and related offences, 'European' represented the ethnicity with the most proceedings. (Obviously, this doesn't overlap with family violence exactly.)
Her later statement, about women being more likely to be victims of family and sexual violence (and men more likely the perpetrators), is true.
Reporting disclosure statement: This post was written with expert advice from Women’s Refuge principal policy advisor Dr Natalie Thorburn.
Additional information: The article has been updated with links to further data on family violence convictions and sexual assault and related offences (edited March 30).